I mentioned earlier I’ve been looking into some cosmetic updates for my guest bathroom. This is the bathroom located on the second floor of my home. It gets a lot of frequent use in my home since we’re both still enamored at the idea of having more than one bathroom.

The space is pretty nice with a full shower and a jetted tub. It also has a nice view in the shower of my neighbor’s window and I’m not down with exhibitionism.Tan tile isn’t really my thing but I also don’t want the hassle of ripping it out. The worst part is that the grout looks pink against the tan walls so I’ll definitely be changing the wall color. I also want a more functional space with some shelves and hooks.

On a design note, I moved the same art and towels from my last house over to the new place. My last house was more transitional, like this:

My towels are showing their age and I already bought a new white shower curtain since my last house had a glass stall. So far my new house has a French Rustic Industrial vibe going on. I want to bring this into the bathroom just a bit. I’m thinking metals and natural-looking woods, lots of white and tan tones, and some natural elements in this space.

I’ve been trying to add some cosmetic updates to my bathrooms lately. One of the key changes each bathroom needed was a glamorous mirror that could fit the space.

Bathroom A needed some bling and shine. I immediately liked the Fenestra Mirror from Z Galleriebut at $349 I wasn’t going to be buying it. Luckily the Braden Petite Wall Mirror looked nearly identical (only ½” max dimension difference) but was at least $100 cheaper. Right now you can find versions at Wayfair or Shades of Light.

TIP: Always check sites like Joss & Main, Bellacor, and Wayfair regularly. Items come and go as inventory allows. I managed to have some patience, saw it appear on Joss & Main and paired it with some free shipping and a $5 credit and paid $150 for the mirror. It went out of stock soon after so always be on the hunt!

I’ve told you I’ve moved but I never did a farewell post to my first house. This house means a lot to me, even though it also drove me crazy at times. My husband bought this house when he was still my boyfriend, I was in college and had just finished chemotherapy. He bought it in 2006, I moved in during the fall of 2007 the day after our wedding, and we moved out just before Christmas in 2014. I lived in this house when there was no kitchen, when we had no bathroom doors and had to cross those delicate boundaries, through cars that drove into the yard and into trees (but thankfully never the house), through getting our first dog, through a break in, and through our learning curve as DIYers.

This house was built in the early 1940s by my husband’s great aunt and uncle. My husband bought it from his great aunt before she died, and now another family member has bought it from us. Because it stayed in the family, we were able to have a simple transaction and the family member was very flexible while we had our infinite house hunting process. Additionally, the relative assured us he wanted to change things like paint colors so he didn’t require us to touch up before we moved. Nice guy, huh? So while I’m not proud of how every room looks here, I can tell you that there’s now a Blues shrine in the space we used as the office and that room seems to get a lot of love. Here’s a shot of the room before we moved in and when we moved out.

Before

After

And again with the dining room

Before

After

Here’s a glance at the living room:

Before

After

The bathroom ended up changing places in the house, hence the major redesign. Here’s what we started with:

And here’s what we ended with:

We had a can of paint ready to go for this room and thankfully the new homeowner has already painted it in a color of his choice. This room was our test room for yellow and we ended up finding the perfect color and putting it in the kitchen. This picture is the last trace of our failed experiments.

Speaking of the kitchen, the old one was much smaller and less functional. We did a full reno on it, gutting and including that pink bathroom above. Here’s the final look at the kitchen:

Before

After

That kitchen was really my favorite part of the house. It came out looking so good and while I love my new one, there’s a sense of pride that comes from planning and designing a space of your own.

I’m leaving out the bedrooms and some older exterior shots on this tour to protect our privacy and the new homeowner’s as well. I always thought this house had so much potential and while we found some of it, I know that the new owner will find even more.

Onto the final floor of the new house. (First floor, second floor) This space is where we go to escape everything in the world each evening.

When the husband and I first toured open houses we found this one house with a bonus space on the third floor. While that wasn’t the one for us, we both fell in love with the concept. Thankfully we found a space of our own.

I can’t decide what I like best about this space.

That I have another bathroom. (Can you believe I lived for 7+ years with just 1 bathroom in my last house?)

That I have this wide open space to fill

That I have this crazy kitchenette (that the old owners left all their beer in)

Or maybe that this staircase goes to a rooftop deck that has an amazing view.

When we last left off, I’d shown you the first floor of the house. Now up the old staircase to the second floor. A quick note- this used to be a 2-family home. I have just scratched the surface into hunting down my house’s history but this wall you see here would have been fully closed off and this staircase would lead to the second story/second family property while the entire first floor belonged to another family. Kind of crazy to think about.

Once again, here’s a layout to help you orient yourself in the house.

We’re combining that front bedroom/sitting room into an office for the time being. We’ve got some crazy plans for a desk that we still need to work on and some major built ins we hope to include but we have hopes that it’ll end up really nice.

The majority of the walls involve doors, windows, or fireplaces so as you can see it can be hard to fit in furniture. Hence all the planning we’re doing so far.

We’ve got a guest bedroom that we’re just using for storage right now. Hopefully the guests stay a way a bit while we figure out some things around here. When we do pretty it up we have a really nice brick wall and pocket door to work with.

There’s also a nice guest bathroom up here

As well as laundry and linen closets

Then we come to the master suite. Let me tell you right now that this area has been a pain since we moved in thanks to the lack of weatherproofing on doors and windows, a squirrel getting into the bathroom vent, and yet I still love it.

This door here goes out to a deck. We’ve got it sealed off for winter right now but we hope to get out there and get planting soon. I’ll make sure you can see it when I show some exterior pictures.

There’s still some things to improve upon on this floor but it already feels like home. I hope to be back soon with some pictures of the third floor.

I mentioned in another post how I love Katie Daisy’s whimsical creations. I’m starting to plan out some artwork purchases and I decided to create an image board to help me see how her pieces would work with some ideas I had in mind. I chose two of her pieces, Salt Air Hair and Take Me to The Sea, as inspiration for a soothing bathroom look.

I’m not sure if I’ll end up going this route as my bathroom won’t be started on until at least October, but I love the idea of a softer take on the nautical idea. I chose pieces that reminded me of ocean waves and salty seas for this inspiration board. I’ve listed the sources but I’ve also listed out some DIY alternatives for some of the pricier pieces.

Sources

Seychelles Chandelier by Serena & Lily ($1500). This item is so gorgeous but the $1500 price tag is way out of my budget. Even before I saw the price tag I was thinking of how similar the light was to these DIY mardi gras bead chandeliers. I’d love to try it with these chip bead strands. I’m not sure what kind of light I may include in here but it would work simply as a decorative piece over my corner bathtub.

Large Atlantis Clam Shell by Z Gallerie ($59.95). I’m hoping I can find a slightly smaller (and cheaper!) version of this clam shell. It would look perfect on my bathroom vanity with some decorative soaps and handtowels thrown in.

Capiz Sea Horses by Pottery Barn Teen ($29-$39). I’ve seen DIY tutorials for copycat capiz using waxed paper and I think there’s a project here. These would be great for the walls above my bathtub.

Faux Coral by Z Gallerie ($29.95-$59.95). I already have the perfect plan for DIYing this for a lot less. I’m going to buy coral at the local pet store and spray paint it a nice shade of aqua.

Starfirsh Bowl by Z Gallerie ($24.95). The price on this one is too good to resist. I think this would be a perfect holder for some of my Lush bath bombs or some rolled up towels near the bathtub.

Blue Cloud Vases by Z Gallerie ($19.95-$24.95). While I could think of a DIY copycat, I think it would cost more than the actual item and the color on these is perfection. The 8″ one would be perfect on a bathroom shelf.

Any ideas for some other good accessories or wall colors? I have a Target soap dispenser that would repurpose beautifully into this room but I’m worried the overall look might be too dramatic for the subtle and sellable look we’re going for.

Welcome to renovation time! It’s about Spring 2006 in this timeline and the wall between the kitchen and bathroom is coming down along with a lot of other walls.

Here we are with the inner walls torn out, the outer walls torn out, and working on tearing out the soffits too. My husband is on the step ladder working on demolishing everything. Can you believe we didn’t find a speck of insulation between the inner and outer walls? Suddenly the chill in the house made sense.

Here’s a shot that gives you a better look at the layout of the house. On the left are the stairs leading down to the basement (with yet another brilliant shade of aqua) and on the right are the stairs leading up to the attic.

The bathroom wasn’t safe from destruction either. No insulation here either, though we did find some nice old razor blades in the wall.

Meanwhile my brother-in-law rests after helping haul out the cast iron tub. I’m very thankful no one asked me to help haul that thing.

Next, we installed new windows and had an electrician come out to install new lights and upgrade the existing electrical to work with modern appliances. I have two brother-in-laws and one worked as a plumber and the other worked in HVAC so both were able to help us out with the necessary plumbing and ductwork changes. After that we were ready to drywall.

You can see here that we built onto an old wall on the right of the screen. This is actually where the original kitchen door stood. In that nook we built we planned to fit in a full sized range, fridge, and even cabinetry.

This is the same wall where that awful sink and toilet once stood. Is drywall better than pink tile?

To show you my kitchen I have to show you it in stages. When we first saw the house, the kitchen wasn’t in very good shape. Don’t believe me?

This was the view from the old doorway. There was a soffit wasting valuable space, and very few cabinets.

Even this side wasted space. And the color, ugh!

Over here we had an old stove, no counter, and a space so small that a specially-sized fridge used to be here.

The sink wasn’t bad but the counters could use some work.

The cabinets left something to be desired both inside and out.

We started thinking about how to manage the kitchen and what to do with it. The room was closed off and down a little hallway, it wasn’t big enough to hold a fridge, and it needed a makeover. When we thought about it, there was an obvious solution.

The bathroom next door also had a problem. It was tiny. So tiny I could reach from my place in the bathtub in the photo above and touch the mirror without even leaning forward.

So tiny that the linen cabinet inside of it had a notch cut out of the door so it could open without hitting the bathtub or entrance door.

Not to mention that the bathtub could use some work

The tile wasn’t exactly my #1 choice

And don’t even get me started on the toilet or sink.

When it came down to it, it was a fairly easy choice to make. The kitchen was opening up. Unfortunately, that was the last time anything about the kitchen was easy. Tomorrow I’ll show you what a home renovation looks like.

What I’ve Read This Year

About Me

I'm Julie and I live in Missouri. I enjoy doing crazy projects for my 1940s house, traveling, cooking, and being hyper. My travel website, travelhyper.com, focuses on beautiful places around the world while this blog focuses on the beauty and insanity of being a homeowner. You can reach me at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments.